(Reuters) – The United States has delivered about 2.7 million doses of COVID vaccines for children below five years to administration centres while another one million shots will reach the sites soon, the Department of Health and Human Services said on Wednesday.
Vaccine delivery to administration sites began on Friday, immediately after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)granted the emergency-use authorization, the federal agency said.
The FDA has allowed Moderna Inc’s two-dose vaccine for children aged six months to five years and Pfizer-BioNTech’s three-shot regimen for children aged six months to four years late last week.
The HHS said it had received about 4.2 million orders for vaccines for young children since pre-ordering began a few weeks ago.
There were nearly 20 million children below the age of 5 as of 2019, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
(Reporting by Mrinalika Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)
